According to Decrypt, excitement has spread to the Ethereum community following the approval and listing of 10 spot Bitcoin ETFs, with hopes that a spot Ethereum ETF could be up next. However, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler gave little encouragement when asked if a spot Ethereum ETF is poised to gain SEC approval any time soon. In an interview with CNBC, Gensler emphasized his view of Bitcoin as a commodity, likely attempting to draw an implicit line between Bitcoin's unchallenged status as a commodity and the potential status of all other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, as securities.
Gensler has repeatedly maintained that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency he views as certainly being a commodity, meaning one outside the SEC's purview. While the SEC has yet to make any official pronouncements about Ethereum's security status, the agency has previously signaled in legal filings that it views all Ethereum transactions as falling under its jurisdiction. If the SEC were to view Ethereum as a security, that would likely make the regulator even more hostile to a spot Ethereum ETF than it was to a Bitcoin ETF, which it previously rejected for years before being forced to do so by a federal appeals court.
However, the same court decision might also force the SEC to approve a spot Ethereum ETF. The SEC was ordered to review Grayscale's Bitcoin ETF application in October because it could not arbitrarily deny a spot Bitcoin ETF after approving a Bitcoin futures ETF application. The SEC already approved an Ethereum futures ETF that same month, potentially setting up a parallel legal scenario. Ethereum's price has risen this week on excitement spurred by the spot Bitcoin ETF approvals, with the token approaching $2,700 for the first time since April 2022.
